I was happy to see that the way astrology is first described in the movie is an accurate and reasonable assessment: that the horoscope is a snapshot of one's natal chart and the positions of the planets and luminaries at the exact moment of birth. The main character, Jake, reads his horoscope in the paper and prepares to have a "5-star" birthday; however, he has a Murphy's Law day instead. Angry that the horoscope "lied" to him, he decides to write a paper for his ethics class, demonstrating that astrology is B.S. propaganda. The newspaper horoscope he reads is bogus. It mentioned the "mid-heaven". A professional astrologer cannot know where the mid-heaven of a subject is without knowing the birth time and place, so any newspaper horoscope that would assume the mid-heaven of everyone in a particular zodiac sign or even born on a certain day is fake.
Thanks to the I-net, Jake obtains the names and addresses of three other individuals born at approximately the same time as he, at the same hospital, and he searches out the three other people. To his consternation, he discovers that 2 out of 3 had rotten birthdays too. (SPOILER: The third was not honest with him when he said his birthday was fine. His sucked also.) This third person, Wes, played by Max Hartman, seems to be somewhat older than all the others (maybe 10 years), but they're all supposed to the same age. This was a little weird.
These goobers don't spoil the main message of the film, however. As it manages to demonstrate very nicely, it's not about what chart or fate you are dealt, but how you react to what happens to you. On account of Jake's zero-star day, he becomes a better person and ends up (SPOILER, but you could see it coming) kissing Sarah. He does have a bit of an ethical dilemma as he presents his research to the class.
I am in the minority, but I felt that the actress who played Sarah (Jena Malone) seemed to be parroting rehearsed lines and gestures in her first scenes, although she relaxed later. At the beginning when Jake tracks down his first subject, I disliked him (the character) for seeming more like a creepy stalker than a college student, but he eventually becomes more human. There were two hilarious scenes: one with the diner waitress and another with the receptionist at the facility for troubled youth where one of Jake's B-day twins works. The guy who played Jake's roommate was also very funny in a low-key way.
